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Three Canadian victims mourned after Las Vegas attack

By Victoria GibsonStaff ReportersAlexandra Jones

Mon., Oct. 2, 2017

Three Canadian families are grieving today.

In a Sunday night attack on the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Nevada, B.C. native Jordan McIldoon and Albertan Jessica Klymchuk lost their lives. Klymchuk’s death was confirmed by her home province’s premier Rachel Notley; McIldoon’s, by a relative.

Air travellers arriving in Vancouver from Las Vegas recounted their stories of Sunday?s mass shooting, which killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds. A Toronto resident says the experience still doesn't feel real. (The Canadian Press)

A third Canadian victim was identified as Jasper, Alta. resident Calla Medig. Friends and the Jasper Royal Canadian Legion mourned her death on social media Monday night.

“My heart is numb knowing such a tragedy struck our small community,” said Tessa Mac in a Facebook post. “Heaven is an even brighter place now that they have you Calla.”

Klymchuk was the mother of four children, and was in Nevada with her fiancé when she was killed. Friend Candace Nicole described her as a “gorgeous human being,” and said Klymchuk’s kids were her entire life.

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“She had the biggest heart and she always wore the sweetest smile. Her kids were her entire life and her family and friends meant the world,” Nicole said.

McIldoon would have turned 24 on Friday, and was only a month shy of finishing his training as a heavy-duty mechanic. In a Facebook posting, Heather Gooze of Las Vegas said she was outside the festival grounds on Sunday.

“I am with a young man who died in my arms! RIP Jordan McIldoon from British Columbia,” Gooze wrote.

Her account could not immediately be verified.

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From left to right: Jessica Klymchuk of Valleyview, Alta., Jordan McIldoon of Maple Ridge, B.C. and Calla Medig of Jasper, Alta. were among the 59 people who died in the attack in Las Vegas Sunday night. (Facebook)

As news of the deaths hit airwaves and grief rippled north of the border, another Canadian couple — still cooped up in Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay hotel — peered outside at a broken window two floors below.

There, a drape blew out from the fractured glass, into the morning wind.

It’s the spot where 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire Sunday night, killing at least 58 people and injuring 500 before ending his own life. Less than 24 hours later, it’s being called one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

“There’s debris everywhere,” Lindsay Sherk — who travelled from Ottawa for the festival — said over the phone, looking out the window. She watched as investigators paced the now-empty venue, a ghostly scene strewn with abandoned lawn chairs and scattered personal belongings.

The night before, Canadian filmmaker Jode Kechego also watched the scene from above. But standing on the roof of the hotel, as police helicopters began circling above, he was struck by fear that authorities could mistake him for the shooter.

“I have a big tripod, I’m on the ledge of the roof,” Kechego, a member of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, told the Star. He’d been making a time-lapse video of the crowd, when a security guard rushed up to him and asked if he knew what had just happened.

“As soon as he said that, we heard the gunshots,” he said.

From his viewpoint, Kechego could see the crowd splinter. He heard several rounds of quick firing, with brief pauses in between, before a series of slower single shots that sounded like they came from another direction.

Graphic video content from social media users show the dramatic events in Las Vegas on Sunday, where a gunman opened fire on an outdoor music festival. (The Associated Press)

The security guard told him they needed to evacuate. As he was packing up his equipment, he saw a light shine on the roof: it was from the helicopters.

Kechego immediately became nervous. “There’s a shooting where nobody knows where it’s coming from, the helicopter has a spotlight on me, and I’m a guy with a backpack and a big black case,” he said.

“That did not look good.”

But he made it inside the hotel, aided by security. Along with around 80 people, Kechego spent the night in the bar of a restaurant on the top floor. No one got much sleep, and they didn’t leave until 7:30 a.m.

In the eye of the night’s chaos, another Canadian chose to reach for home. 24-year-old Quinn Mell-Cobb called his mom as he ran from the scene.

He and his girlfriend Madison Milford were among dozens of Canadians in the crowd, who ran from the stage as the bullets sprayed down. The crowd sought refuge, banging on the hoods of swerving cars as they tried to cross Tropicana Blvd. As they ran, he dialed a familiar Vancouver number.

His mom’s voice came through the other side.

“[I] told her what was going on and that I wasn't sure if we would be OK,” Mell-Cobb wrote in a Facebook message to the Star. He expected his mom to panic; she’d always been the kind to worry, no matter what the situation was.

Radio communications from the Las Vegas Police Dept. as the mass shooting unfolded Sunday night captures the frantic moments faced by law enforcement officers as they determined where the shooting was coming from and stormed the gunman's room. (The Associated Press)

But from the other side of the border, she offered solace.

“She was an immense help and calmly talked us through everything, the whole way right up to arriving at our room,” Mell-Cobb wrote. His heart was pulled at one point when Milford stumbled; he thought she’d been shot.

“It’s the most terrifying thing you could ever imagine,” he wrote.

But they made their way back to the MGM Grand Hotel, up to the 20th floor, where they stayed hunkered down for hours. His brother joined his mom on the phone, giving updates as more information emerged.

Throughout the night marked by chaos, there was a lot of “true heroism” in the night, Mell-Cobb told the Star.

“I saw men carrying kids and women out, others knocking down barricades, just stuff like that,” he wrote. “Restores your faith in humanity despite having it come from such a heinous act.”

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